


Recipe for Disaster

by mskamalakhan (blxegansey)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pushing Daisies
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 11:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4875616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blxegansey/pseuds/mskamalakhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Pie Maker meets a girl from his childhood in unusual circumstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Crime of Passion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AslansCompass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AslansCompass/gifts).



It had been twelve years, eleven months, and five days since Leo The Pie Maker had last seen her. She was now lying in front of him in a coffin wearing a cream colored dress, her brown hair framing her face.   
The last time he had seen her had been very different. For one thing She was still alive for another she was only fourteen years old. Right now she wasn't breathing anymore, lying there motionless.  
His train of thought was interrupted by a fake cough from behind. Skye was leaning against the wall as she looked at her watch, her eyebrows raised expectantly.  
“I don’t have all day. I’m going to meet my mom later.”  
"Alright!" Leo said rolling his eyes at her. "Can you at least leave? I just want some…privacy."  
"Sure." she banged the door on her way out, but at least Leo knew this wasn’t out of anger or hurt. Skye had been surprisingly sympathetic of the whole situation.  
Since he had heard the news, he thought about it a lot and he thought everything through; he thought of what he wanted to say and what he didn’t want to say.   
Slowly he reached index finger out towards her face. He inched his finger closer to her cheek and reluctantly touched the soft skin right next to her lips.  
Her eyes opened up and she immediately sat up, almost knocking into him.  
"Hello, Jemma." Shyly he smiled at her, unsure of what to do with his hands now.  
"Leo?” she stepped out of the coffin and was approaching him now.   
"Hi." He shook his hand awkwardly took a step back, just in case she got dangerously close to him.   
“What’s going on?”  
"Um...it's...You died but I brought you back temporarily. But only for one minute.”  
"What? Was that what your finger did?” She took another step towards him, her eyes scanning the room. “Have I been murdered?"  
"I think so, that’s actually why I’m here.” He stepped back and tried to think of a good way to ask her. "Do you remember what happened before you died?"  
"I was home reading a book in my bed, then I thought I heard someone come into the living room. I thought it was my roommate, so I went to the living room to talk to her. I didn’t see anyone there and I was going back to my room when out of nowhere a plastic bag was on my head." She sat on a chair her eyes still on him. "I'm running out of time, aren't I?"  
“Sorry.” The pie maker looked at his watch and nodded, "You remember that day-um-when I moved out of Couer de couer." he stepped closer to Jemma. "I was in- You were my firs-"  
"You were my first kiss, too" She interrupted, getting up and moving towards him.   
"I could be your last kiss too. If that isn’t weird."  
“It’s not weird at all.” She got up and stood right next to him, almost moving her hands to hold his then yanking them away as she realized the mistake.  
He leaned in closer, closed his eyes and carefully clasped his hands behind him to avoid any contact before their lips touched. At that moment, of the many thoughts that could have been in the Pie maker’s brain, one stuck out in particular.  
"What if you didn't have to be dead?"  
He had not planned this at all, but under the circumstances he had a change of heart and he thought of this.

##

A few hours later, Jemma and Leo were safely in the apartment above the Pie Hole and catching their breaths after all the sneaking around. After he had told Skye that he wanted to stay for the service, he helped Jemma get out of the funeral home unseen and drove away in his car.   
"So a kiss is out of the question?" As Leo cut her a piece of pie, she questioned him about everything from her murder to how he had brought her back to life. She had been surprisingly fine with what had happened to her.  
"It is." He put the plate in front of her on the table.  
"How does it exactly work?" she asked after minutes of silence, "What happens to all the degenerated cells? Are they revived and repaired? What happens if there are severed limbs or missing organs? What if that person was decapitated?"  
"I honestly don't know how it works. Most people who are murdered have lots of scars and wounds, they stay the same. Of course, unlike you, none of them stayed alive more than one minute. I’m guessing the repair takes time."  
"I see." She turned her head in his direction, "How did you find out? That you could raise the dead?"  
"My dog, Digby, had an accident. We were playing outside when he was ran over by a car. I went to see if he was alright and he started moving again as soon as I touched him."  
"Where is he now?"  
"My neighbor keeps him whenever I'm away." He looked at his watch, "I should probably get him now."  
"Don't you ever pet him? Doesn't he ever touch you?" Her eyes were sparkling with curiosity, as she asked.  
"No, I think he knows what would happen if we touch."  
"How did you find out that they'll be dead if you touch them again?"  
Leo the pie maker did not want to answer that question, he was about to open his mouth to lie when he was saved by his neighbor knocking on the door.  
“It’s probably her. Maybe you should hide in the bedroom.”  
He walked to the door and opened it to a petite blonde woman standing there beaming at him, Digby sitting at her side wagging his tail.  
"Hey, I saw you came in and I brought Digby in." She looked inside, seeing the plates on the table. Leo was glad that Jemma took his advice. "See you at work."  
"Thank you, Olive."  
"My pleasure." she beamed at him before she climbed up the stairs.

##

"I need to tell you something." He looked around to make sure Olive or the customers weren't paying attention to them. He sat opposite Skye, and handing her an a la mode cherry pie.  
"Does it have anything to do with the dead girl walking in here?"   
"What?" he turned around and saw Jemma walk inside wearing a beautiful mauve dress, her head covered by a large hat and her face almost hidden behind an unbelievably large pair of sunglasses. "What are you doing here?"  
She sat beside Skye as to keep as much distance from Leo. "I want to help you solve my murder." Her voice dropped significantly as she said the last two words. “I could be of great help and we could split the prize. You’re doing this for the prize, right?”  
“It was for the prize at first,” Leo tried to explain himself, “but as soon as I knew it was you…”  
Skye rolled her eyes and scooped up the last of her pie, "No, you're not. I don't need you showing your face around places and people who could recognize you and risk this whole situation.” She finished her bite and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Plus, there’s no reason for us to get paid a little less for all that disaster you’d bring along.”  
The pie maker felt the same way, at least about the part that was about the risk, but he was glad to have Jemma around, so he kept silent as Jemma convinced private investigator Coulson to let her join them.

##

After a few cups of espresso-Skye’s favorite- and some pie on the house, plus a significant amount of reasoning and arguing on Jemma’s side, Skye half-heartedly agreed to let Jemma help them.   
“Hi, I’m Olive.” She cornered them right before they left the Pie Hole. “You are…?”  
“Jemma,” she looked more excited to meet Olive than she did. “I’m staying with Leo for a while.”  
“Oh! Are you two…?”  
“Sort of, I guess.” She chuckled and glanced at him, making him blush.  
“We’re leaving now, Olive.” He explained before Olive could make things any more embarrassing. “Can you close up after the place is empty?”  
“Sure thing, boss.”  
They drove to Jemma's apartment in Skye's car, Jemma sitting in the back and talking about how exciting and promising everything seemed. All the while Skye shot the pie maker dagger looks, and made annoyed noises. He just tried to ignore her since he knew it was about Jemma being still alive, so he tried-and failed- to come up with a good explanation for later.  
Right after they stepped inside the apartment, Skye's phone rang. She looked at Leo sideways while she silently listened to the person talking on the other side, occasionally humming her agreement.  
"I need to talk to you in private." She grabbed him by the arm as soon as she hung up her phone. Surprised, Leo could do nothing but to let her drag him outside the place.  
"There's a dead body in the morgue."  
"There always is."  
"It's the one who got killed instead of dead girl here." She cocked her head in direction of Jemma, who was busy getting some of her belongings in a box. "We're going to the morgue later to see how things are."  
"I'm all done here. Let's go before my roommate gets back." She came into the living room holding a big box full of books, clothes and some random knick-knacks. "What's wrong?"  
"We've got another case." Leo answered before Skye could say something and ruin everything.  
"We're going to drive down to the morgue after we drop you off at the Pie Hole." Skye took Jemma's box and started climbing down the stairs.  
"Hey, wait. I'm coming with you to the morgue"  
"No, you're not." Skye stopped on the stairs and turned to him. "Fitz, tell her."  
"Jemma, you don't want to go to the morgue. It's..."  
"It has something to do with .my case, doesn't it?" Jemma interrupted, going down the steps two at a time.  
"It does. But you don't want to be there.”  
"Are you trying to hide something?” She stopped as she reached the ground floor.  
"What? I'm not- Why would I hide anything?” He struggled not to do anything too obvious with his hands so he just stuffed them in his pockets.  
"Your eye twitches when you lie, just like it did when you were a kid.”  
"My eye does not twitch.”  
"It just did.” Jemma chuckled and walked through the door as Skye opened it. "Just tell me whatever it is. I already died, and I'm alive again. There's not much I can lose right now.”  
“It’s just a case, nothing we can’t handle.”  
."Wait- is it someone I know? Is it my family?”  
"NO, no." Fitz interjected before Jemma could panic any more. "Somebody-somebody you don't know-died at the funeral home."  
"Oh," her body visibly relaxed as the panic was wiped off her face. "Were they murdered? Are you going to investigate it now?"  
"There's nothing to investigate." Skye said before Fitz could answer. "We know how he died and who killed him."  
"You do?"  
"Yes, why don't you tell her Fitz?" Mercilessly, she left him alone with Jemma.  
The Pie Maker’s eye twitched in anticipation of the lie he was about to tell, but what came out of his mouth was the truth.   
"It was me."

##

They were back at the pie hole after Fitz had fully explained to her how the resurrection worked on the drive back. Skye had also been furious at him for making her an accomplice in the murder. However her temper got a lot better after she got a call from a prospective client. So they were going to look at another body in the morgue.   
"I can't believe this." Jemma was walking back and forth in a line, her arms crossed.   
"It's not my fault, Jemma. It's an accidental proximity thing."  
"But it was your fault that I stayed alive and he died. You could have told me that before you offered to let me stay alive."   
She stormed out of the bakery before Fitz could say one more word.   
"You know you could have prevented all of this drama if you had kept to the sixty-second rule." Skye said.  
"I-I didn't think. My mind was just full of one thought and I couldn’t think of anything else."  
"Well, we still have to- you know- talk to him."

##

The Pie Maker looked at his watch and set the time to exactly sixty seconds. Thinking about what to say to the dead man, he reached out his hand.  
"Wait up." Skye stuck her head out of the files she was holding, "Don't you want to know a little about him first?"  
"Name's Grant Ward. He's got a pretty impressive rap sheet.” She walked to the other side of the slab, making a tsk-ing sound. “He's worked with several known criminals." She paused for a second, "What sort of people does your dead girl hang out with?"  
"Hey, I'm standing right here!" Jemma protested, causing Skye to give her a questioning look. "Of course not! I have no idea who that is. I am-was- a scientist not a criminal mastermind."  
"So, he either was there for another dead person or-"  
“You think he might have been the one who killed me?”  
“I’m pretty sure he is.”   
Jemma and Fitz exchanged a look. "That's just sloppy, going back to the corpse is like going back to the crime scene." Jemma started blabbering, "It just means that he didn't come to my apartment just to murder me, he came there for something, right?"  
"That's about it." Skye agreed, surprising Leo with her lack of objection to Jemma. "Now get your finger to work, Pie Boy."  
Fitz touched his finger to Jemma’s possible murderer and quickly moved it away.   
"What's going-" He was soon half-sitting on the slab his hard muscly chest revealed as the sheet covering him fell down. He stopped just as he noticed Jemma standing there.   
"Didn’t I kill you? Wait...Am I also dead?"  
"Yes, but you're alive just for now." Leo kept his eye on his watch as he answered.  
"How did I die?"  
“I’m so sorry.” He did really mean it. “It was my fault. I wasn’t thinking properly."   
Jemma took a step closer to him, "I wanted to thank you. If...if it wasn't for you I wouldn't have been here."  
"Enough of that," Skye pushed Jemma away and put on a serious interrogation look. "What were you doing at the funeral home?"  
"I went there to find who she had given them to."  
"Given what to whom?" Fitz looked at his watch again to make sure they still had enough time left. "What were you looking for?"  
"The statues. They told me she had the monkeys, but they weren't at her place. So I assumed they were with a friend of hers."  
The Pie Maker touched the man with his finger just a second before the minute was over.

##

"So, somebody hired an assassin to steal a couple of monkey statues you won in an online game of chess?" Fitz looked at her as he was rolling the dough. "And here I was thinking my life was weird and messed up."   
"Maybe they were some of those really old antiques- although they don’t look like it." Jemma had insisted on helping him bake in the Pie Hole. She was now sauntering around the kitchen, putting on an apron on her teal dress. She grabbed a basket full of green apples that Leo had already revived and started chopping them up on the counter.   
"Maybe it was a way to transfer drugs." She pushed the basket of now chopped apples towards him on the other side of the table. “Or perhaps some alien artefact.”  
"Well, anything is possible, I guess." He tried to sound cheerful.  
“Whoever hired him will want to get those statues, right?”  
“I guess so, but don’t worry about that. Skye’s already informed the police and is investigating the- your murderer.”  
“Oh, really?” She looked up from her task. “Has she found anything yet?”  
“Well, she spoke to some people who were at the funeral home. Turns out he wasn’t the only one unaccounted for.”  
“He had an accomplice?”  
“Not exactly. He was probably following the first guy.  
The facts were these; Grant Ward, a hired assassin and ex-military, had been hired by a private contractor to find a specific set of statues by any means possible. The pay was more than it usually was for retrieving property from defenseless civilians, so he had done some research on the object he was about to get. Eventually he decided to make replicates and give them to the contractor instead, who eventually found out his trick and hires someone else to kill Mr. Ward.  
“In the meantime, we have another case to work on.” He placed the top on the half ready pie and carefully put it in the oven.   
“What is it?”  
“I think you’ll like it.” He walked back towards the table in the middle of the kitchen. “I’ll convince Skye to let you help with the investigation. As you clearly have a lot of knowledge on the matter.”


	2. Beesness Buzz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pie Maker and the Dead Girl join private detective Coulson in investigating a case.

The facts were these; Karen Walters was found in her car outside her workplace believed to have been stung to death. Her husband, Carl Walters, a psychiatrist, had hired detective Skye Coulson to investigate her death, as he suspected she had been cheating on him with someone at work and that someone might have murdered Karen.  
Detective Coulson had agreed to meet the Pie Maker at the morgue; but she was quite annoyed as the familiar car approached with an uninvited guest in it. As the car stopped she saw something between them that looked like a plastic partition, a plastic glove attached to it in the middle. She couldn’t help but laugh even though that was possibly one of the saddest things she had seen.  
“Hi!” The girl hopped out of the car, greeting the PI excitedly. She was wearing a floral halter dress a bright pink shawl covering her shoulders. She was donning a matching hat and a pair of over large sunglasses.   
“Why did you bring her here?” She completely ignored Jemma’s presence and talked directly to Leo. “What if someone recognizes her?”   
“Nobody’s going to recognize her, there’s nothing about her on the news anymore. Plus she could actually help us a lot.”   
“Well, the only help I need is you and your magic finger.” She turned towards the entrance of the building and put away her sunglasses, “Come on, let’s just get this over with.”   
Inside the morgue they found Karen lying on the slab, her body covered in sting marks of varying sizes.   
“Bees!” Jemma exclaimed rather too excitedly as she saw the victim.   
When Jemma was nine years, six months and eleven weeks old, young Jemma stumbled upon a very special book in the library. The book was about bee keeping and harvesting honey. After she had read the book and many others cover to cover, she started raising her own colony of bees turning it into a passionate hobby and eventually a charity; called Honey for the Homeless.   
At that moment, she was thinking of the bees she used to keep on her apartment’s rooftop, which were most likely all dead now.   
“Yes, she worked with bees.” Skye broke Jemma out of her thoughts. “She was attacked by a swarm of bees while working.”   
She slapped a few dollars in the coroner’s hand making him leave them in the room alone. “She worked in Betty’s Bees, which is all the buzz in honey-based beauty products-pun definitely intended.”  
“Shall I?” Leo looked at his business partner questioningly.   
Skye nodded, and Jemma smiled at him. He looked for a bit of unstung skin to touch, which was a hard task, so he settled for a tiny bit on Karen’s forehead near her eyebrows.   
Leo stepped back as she abruptly sat up on the slab.   
“Hi, Karen.” Jemma smiled at her.  
“What’s happening?”  
“You died and now your husband has hired us to investigate your death.”   
“Really? That’s so sweet.”   
“That is.” Jemma agreed. “Could you tell us what happened to you? Besides the obvious, of course.”   
“I was finishing up some stuff in my office when I turned around and there was this huge swarm of bees shaped like a person. I tried to run but he or she followed me into the corridor. Then suddenly he threw something at me and the bees started attacking me.”   
“Was there any one who might have had reason to kill you?” Skye asked as soon as Karen finished telling her story.   
“Sure, that usually comes along with sabotage.”   
“Five seconds now.” Leo looked at his watch.   
“You were sabotaging Betty’s Bees?”   
“I did it with-” He quickly pressed his finger against Karen’s temple. 

##

They had been sitting there for at least half an hour, Leo futilely attempting to dissuade Jemma and Skye from their dangerous plan. But there was no winning over them; Skye was so sure that it was the only way possible and Jemma too busy fantasizing about the idea that she failed to see how risky it was; even Olive exclaimed her excitement as she brought them pies. In the end he had to settle in on the condition of taking extra precautions.  
Jemma was going to have an interview with Lawrence Stanley Lawrence under the disguise of Cindy Johanson, a bee enthusiast and beekeeper looking to fill the recently available position of Bee Girl at Betty’s Bees. Skye and Leo were listening to the interview courtesy of a pin-shaped bee carefully attached to Jemma’s dress.  
“So, Miss Johanson, your resume looks outstanding.”  
“Thank you.” Jemma’s charm never failed her. “I must ask, are you the Lawrence Stanley Lawrence from Bzzzzzz?”  
“Yes.”  
“Then, why are you here? Betty’s Bees is your biggest rival.”  
“Betty’s Bees is mine now. The acquisition was made quietly so not to create any buzz.”  
“I won’t create any buzz, I promise. I just hope that you’re not killing any Bee Girls.”  
“Excuse me? What are you talking about?”  
“You know how mergers are; people lose their jobs all the time or they get pay cuts.”  
“You’ll be safe here. We’ve recently had a job opening, fortunately for you, although less fortunate for others.”  
“Are you talking about Karen Walters? She died from a harvesting accident, I think. It was all over the news.”  
“Yes, it’s a terrible loss. Karen had a bright future here.”  
“I have actually heard that she was going to leave the company before her death.”  
“Ah, you hear a lot of things, don’t you? Well, that’s completely untrue. Karen was going to be the new face of Betty’s Bees.”  
“But Betty’s the face of Betty’s Bees.”  
“Betty’s the old face, Karen is-was the new face.” He was now standing beside a picture of Betty on the company poster, he turned a sheet of plastic over it and Karen’s face replaced Betty’s. “See? Old face, new face. Old, new”  
Jemma gave him a tight smile just to stop him from flipping the page over and over again.  
“Well, Cindy, we’d love you to work here with us.” He extended his hand to her and flashed her his shiny teeth.

###

After the successful and informative interview, Jemma decided to check out Karen’s office, to see if there was anything left there. Quietly she sneaked inside the enormous office and closed the door. She paced around the room to take everything in; the mahogany surface of the desk, the bright yellow closet shaped like a hive, the large window leading to a rather large balcony-whose door was left half-open.  
She took off her heels to minimize the noise and moved towards the desk. She opened drawer after drawer, briefly glancing inside each one until a gold glimmer caught her eye.  
It was a small key, slightly smaller than a normal key and shaped like a bee with a gold ribbon tied to it. She turned it over in her hand a few times and put it in her pocket. She checked under the rug, under the desk and even behind a framed picture of Karen on the wall-even though, according to movies, it was the most obvious choice for a hiding place.  
Moving to the left side of the room, she threw open every door of the closet, finding each compartment empty; until she opened the last and the biggest door. Startled, she took a step back and stifled a scream.  
“Betty?” The former face of Betty’s Bees was uncomfortably bent inside.  
“Yes,” She came out of the closet and tidied up her dress. “And you are?”  
“I’m Cindy.” Smiling, she offered Betty her hand, “I’m the new Bee girl. Stanley just hired me.”  
“Really? Don’t you think it’s a bit too soon after her death?” She absent-mindedly said as she searched every drawer of the desk. “Well, welcome to the company then.”  
Jemma picked up her golden stilettos and gladly got out of the office before Betty could realize that the key was missing.

 

##

Skye had come to the Pie Hole after close up to avoid any nosy or suspicious customers. They were ruling out every possibility about Karen’s murder; they had thought of the most bizarre and unusual scenarios including alien bees, robotic bees, a colony of bees flying in the shape of a person (all had been suggested by a very excited Jemma). Skye had rejected every idea, although less ruthlessly than she used to.   
She had guessed that Lawrence Stanley might have had an affair with Karen and ultimately killed her after she broke up with him. They even mused over the idea of Karen’s husband killing her because of an affair, but they were soon certain of his innocence as he had a solid alibi. He had been giving a talk on the advantages of clean environment-friendly cars, and at least a hundred people had seen him at the time of Karen’s death. But as Jemma suggested the possibility of a hired killer wasn’t entirely off the table.  
“Maybe, the bees killed her out of revenge for the ones she had sabotaged.” Olive jokingly suggested as she passed by them. “Or maybe she had a hand in the take-over with Lawrence and Betty killed her for that.”  
“How long have you been listening to us talk?” Leo asked her as nicely as he could manage.  
“Not very long.” Wounded she walked out of the kitchen without the pie she came for, and had to come back again just to have Skye glare at her.  
“Let’s just lay back until tomorrow.” Making sure no over-enthusiastic waitresses were listening in, Skye got up and said, “We can have more ideas after we snoop around a little in the offices.”

##

Once again Skye and Leo were listening in to whatever was happening to Jemma as she walked around in the offices of Betty’s Bees, this time busily buzzing around doing chores she was given.  
Somehow, she managed to slip into Betty’s office unnoticed as she was away on her lunch break.  
“Ooooh!”  
“What is it?” Skye and Leo simultaneously asked.  
“There’s a picture of Karen on her desk.” There was a series of loud metallic sounds, then the obvious ambient noise of the street below. “Oh, never mind. There’s something much much better here on the balcony.”  
“What is it?”  
“Bees!”  
“Of course there are bees in that office. Damn it, girl. Where is your head?”  
“You don’t get it. Mite infested bees.”  
“What?”  
“Shhhh, someone’s coming!”  
Jemma ran towards the closet and stepped inside, like when Betty had hidden inside another closet the previous day. She managed to close the door just as Betty entered the office. Jemma heard Betty’s footsteps get closer to her, and then she heard another pair of shoes thud on the floorboard.  
“I told you not to come here.” There was a screeching noise as the chair slid across the floor.  
“I’m really sorry, but this is really important. It is in fact a matter of business.” The visitor had a low throaty voice. “I’m just here as your lawyer.”  
“Go on.” There was another screeching sound as Betty sat down.  
“Karen has left you the house.”  
“Why would she do that? She should have known that this would give away everything.”  
“Well, I’m unaware of the reasoning behind her choices, but this is what my daughter wanted. Even though I don’t-“  
“Shhhh. Don’t talk about it here.”  
“Okay, okay. I assume you have the key?”  
“I don’t. It was neither in her office nor in her car. She didn’t have it on her when they found her-”  
“I think I might have a duplicate somewhere.” After a rather long pause the man said, “I’ll have it sent it to you as soon as possible.”  
“Thank you, Rufus.”  
Jemma heard the soft thud of Rufus’s shoes go away.  
“By the way, it was a nice ceremony. Thank you for taking care of everything.”  
The thud of his shoes faded away, and then the more familiar clink of Betty’s heels disappeared out of the room.   
After waiting a few minutes, Jemma carefully climbed out of the closet and checked outside the office. She found the entire floor empty, so she went back in and started checking every drawer and shelf. She was about to leave the office empty handed when she saw it approaching her.  
Thousands and thousands of bees were coming towards her; they were as Karen had told them shaped like a person. Slowly backing away Jemma fell down on the chair.

##

The Pie Maker walked inside Betty’s office exactly twenty minutes and fifty-two seconds after Betty left the building as he was worried Jemma had been uncovered as a mole. The incredible sight that greeted him bewildered him and he cursed himself for not believing what Karen had said.  
Sitting on the chair behind Betty’s desk was a creature made entirely out of bees. Cautiously he walked closer, at which point he realized that the so called creature was in fact no creature at all, but Jemma only covered by a platoon of bees.  
Jemma slowly lifted a bee-covered arm and pointed it at Leo. He turned around and realized she was, in fact, pointing towards the window.   
Acting quickly, he opened the window and moved away from it as Jemma threw something out the window. As if by some magic trick the bees left her alone and flew right out of the window.  
“Are you okay, Jemma?” he closed the window and moved to her, straining not to hug her or touch her arm.  
“I’m fine.” She clearly did not look fine as she was nervously looking around her.  
“What was that?”  
“They were bees, and just like any bees they were following their queen, which was inside that thing. The little box. I kept it in my mouth so I wouldn’t end up like Karen, stung by bees from the inside.”  
“Come on,” reaching out his hand, but still keeping it away from her he tried to stop worrying, ‘”Let’s get out of here.”

##

Jemma was walking around the kitchen as Leo sat on the edge of the table swinging his feet and telling her every step of the recipe. He couldn’t help but smile to himself. Despite all the craziness that had been going on he was quite happy with his life; he could even say he was happier than he ever had been-at least after his mother’s death.  
“All done with the berries.” Jemma smiled at him and stopped in front of him. “What should I do for the dough now?”  
“Mix the flour, sugar and salt. Then-”   
The Pie Maker was cut short when out of nowhere Jemma grabbed a piece of plastic wrap covered her face with it and placed her lips on Leo’s over the plastic.  
He could easily remember how it had felt to kiss Jemma all those years ago, but it surely had not felt this great and terrible at the same time. He could feel her presence more than any other time but he also felt the physical distance between them more than ever. He felt a plethora of butterflies causing chaos in his stomach, at the same time, his heart grew cold as he tried to imagine how Jemma’s lips tasted and how it would feel to embrace her as their lips touched. But he bitterly thought that they could never have that.

##

“Does that mean he’s another suspect?” The Pie Maker and Jemma had gone to Skye’s office and had brought her the pie they had just baked. They were now busily discussing the situation as the private investigator enjoyed the pie she had been given.  
“Maybe he’s just a grieved father?”  
“Mmmm. He, too, had an alibi-he was at work with twenty other people.” Skye was peering over a large pile of paper and files and occasionally taking a large bite of her pie. She was wearing a pair of glasses, but you could tell she wore them just to look more sophisticated.   
“Right now our only suspects are Betty and Lawrence.”  
“So far Betty has been behaving a lot more suspiciously than Lawrence,” Jemma looked thoughtful as she said those words. “There’s something going on about that house, though. Maybe it’s a secret lair or a hide-out”  
“You think we should check out the house?” The Pie Maker turned to Skye expecting her to answer with sarcasm. “I mean we already have the key.”  
“Yeah, we’ll do that tonight.” Without even taking her eyes off the papers Skye ordered with a hint of annoyance. “Now get out of my office.”

##

The house was, according to Skye’s “digging”-although known to most people as the internet- a few miles out of the city surrounded by farms on all sides.   
They were driving there in Leo’s car; Skye was sitting in the back, Jemma and Leo in the front separated by a plastic parting.   
Finally after passing so many farms of wheat, maize and vegetables a large brick house came into view. The garden in the front was covered by overgrown plants and untrimmed trees and a decorative fountain was lying upturned on the ground, some of its parts broken and chipped. Where there weren’t ivy vines the walls and windows were covered by bee hives of different sizes; bees were buzzing in and out of each hive.  
“What in the-” Skye was out of the car as soon as it came to a halt.   
“Let’s go inside.” She was getting three flashlights out of her pocket and handing them to Jemma and Leo who were now out of the car too.  
Using a pin she borrowed from Jemma, Skye aptly opened the door’s lock in matter of only a few seconds. Inside, the house was covered by more beehives and flying bees. Turning on their flashlights the group started walking in the hallway, taking in the unusual wallpapers and the furniture covered in thick layers of dust as they passed each room.  
Finding nothing helpful downstairs they moved on to the next floor. To their astonishment the second floor had nothing in common with the other; each room was immaculately clean and generously furnished and decorated with high taste.  
“Let’s look inside this room.” Skye guided them inside the first room, a small but peculiar study. “You two check out the bookshelves while I search the desk.”  
Carefully standing a safe distance apart, Leo and Jemma searched every shelf for a secret hiding place or a fake book. Every few seconds Jemma cheerfully read aloud the title of some book, most of which were about bees and bee keeping.  
“What do you think you’re doing here?” they all turned around to see Betty herself standing in front of them, her hands placed on her hips and her eyebrows knitted together in an irritated frown.  
“We could ask you the same question.” Skye walked to the other side of the room in long confident strides. “What were you and Karen doing in this house?”  
“What Karen and I did together is none of your business.”  
“That is precisely what my business is. I was hired by Karen’s husband to investigate her death; he thought she was cheating on him. By the looks of it you are at the moment the prime suspect of this case.”  
“So, it turns out that he’s not as stupid as I thought.” she chuckled. “But why would you think I killed Karen? We were as close as two women could be.”  
“Why should we believe you?” Leo asked distrustfully.  
“Well, there’s no reason for me to believe you are who you say you are.”  
“Well enough.” Impressed, Skye raised her eyebrows. “So what can you tell us?”  
“Karen and I were together in business and in life.” Betty started pacing up and down the study. “That has been the case for many years. Of course, nobody knew, it was our secret. Frankly I’m quite surprised Carl found out just recently.”  
“What you’re telling us only gives you all the more motive to kill her.”  
“I DID NOT KILL KAREN!” Betty’s voice rose as she took a step closer to Skye. Her eyes were glistening with what could have been tears. “STOP ACCUSING ME OF KILLING THE WOMAN I LOVED.”  
“Sorry, I just had to ask, just to make sure.” Skye shrugged her shoulders, “Who do you think killed her then?”  
“It has to be that Lawrence Stanley. As I said, Karen and I were also partners in business, so when Stanley took over the company we didn’t want him to ruin everything we had achieved in decades. We took our bees and hid them here, in our home” She gestured around the house, an affectionate smile on her lips as a tear rolled down her cheek. “This is our lives’ work. We even tried to sabotage Lawrence’s work, infected the bees with mite, corrupted the products, did everything we could do without getting caught.”  
“Did Carl know these things, too?” she continued as Skye shook her head, “Well, I guess Stanley found out what we were up to and killed my poor Karen. He always had a temper.”  
“Do you have any evidence that could tie him to her murder?”  
“Nothing I could think of.”   
“No, but I can think of something solid that could put him away for good.” Jemma had a triumphant smile on her lips.

##

Lawrence Stanley Lawrence was arrested the next day for the murder of Karen Walters. His DNA was found on the box of the queen bee he had used to attack Jemma and murder Karen. This easily landed him thirty years in jail and no chance for him to start a new company in the  
Private detective Coulson made sure nobody found out about Karen’s nightly activities with Betty or the fact that she was also Karen’s partner in crime. This resulted in Betty paying Skye a handsome reward as well as the price Carl had agreed to pay her.


End file.
